Venezuela's vice President Nicolas Maduro (C) flanked by cabinet members statement about President Hugo Chavez's cancer surgery in Caracas December 11, 2012. Chavez's cancer operation in Cuba on Tuesday was successful, his vice president Maduro said, adding it was a complicated procedure that lasted more than six hours. The third recurrence of the socialist leader's illness has thrown his 14-year-old presidency into jeopardy and upended politics in the South American OPEC nation. REUTERS/Handout/Miraflores Palace